Canan Bayram

Canan Bayram
Member of the Bundestag for Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East
Incumbent
Assumed office
2017
Personal details
Born (1966-02-11) 11 February 1966 (age 58)[citation needed]
Malatya, Turkey
CitizenshipGerman
Political partyAlliance 90/The Greens
Alma materUniversity of Bonn
Signature

Canan Bayram (born 11 February 1966) is a German lawyer and politician (Alliance 90/The Greens). She is a member of the 19th German Parliament (Bundestag).  She was a member of the House of Representatives of Berlin from 2006 to 2017, when she was directly elected to the Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East electoral district in the 2017 federal election. From 2017 until 2021, she was the only Alliance 90/Green member of parliament to hold a direct mandate rather than being elected from the party list.

Early life

Bayram was born in Malatya, Turkey, and grew up in Germany in Nettetal and Brüggen. Later, she completed high school in Bonn and studied politics and law at the University of Bonn and passed her first law state exam.[1]

Early career

After an internship and passing her second law state exam, Bayram worked as a jurist in various federal ministries. Since 2003, she has been a lawyer in Berlin-Friedrichshain with a focus on labour law and family law.[1]

Political career

Career in state politics

Bayram started her political career by joining the Social Democratic Party in 1999.  In 2006 she was elected to the House of Representatives of Berlin in the district of Berlin-Friedrichshain, winning 28% of the vote in the district. She was a spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary caucus and a member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Home Affairs, Security and Order, as well as the Committee on Economic Affairs, Technology and Women.[2] In May 2009, she defected from the SPD and joined the Alliance 90/The Greens in the House of Representatives of Berlin.[1]

Bayram was re-elected in the 2011 and 2016 Berlin elections in the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 5. She was the spokesperson for migration, integration and refugee policy as well as spokesperson for legal policy in the party.[3] She was also a member of the Committee for Integration, Labor, Vocational Training and Social Affairs as well as the Committee on Home Affairs, Security and Order and the Committee on Legal Affairs, Constitutional Affairs, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination. Her political priorities were labor market policy, family policy, and domestic and legal policy.[3]

Member of Parliament, 2017–present

On 28 February 2017, Bayram announced her candidacy to succeed federal Alliance 90/The Greens member of Bundestag Hans-Christian Ströbele.[4] At a constituency meeting on 11 March 2017, she was nominated as the Green candidate for the Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East electoral district for the 2017 German federal election.[5] During the federal Alliance 90/The Greens convention in Berlin from 16 to 18 June 2017, Bayram was introduced to a wider national audience. In an introductory speech, Bayram sharply criticized the party's lead candidates Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Cem Özdemir.[6]

In the September federal election, Bayram was directly elected to the Berlin-Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East electoral district with 26.3% of the vote.[7] As with her predecessor in the district, Ströbele, Bayram was the only Alliance 90/The Greens member of Bundestag to be directly elected and not from the party list.[8][9]

Bayram has since been a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection. In addition, she has been serving on the parliamentary body in charge of appointing judges to the Highest Courts of Justice, namely the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG), the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), the Federal Labour Court (BAG), and the Federal Social Court (BSG).

In addition to her committee assignments, Bayram has been serving as deputy chairwoman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the Maghreb States. Since 2022, she has also been part of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.[10]

In October 2024, Bayram announced that she would not stand in the 2025 federal elections but instead resign from national politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[11]

Political stances

After a conflict on Berlin's Riga Street, Bayram criticized the Berlin Police after residents had complained about the massive police presence.[12] She was criticized in part by her own party for her statement that "the [police] harassed local residents".[13]

Bayram advocates the rights of tenants and criticizes international real estate funds that she feels are only interested in return on investment.[14]

Following the 2017 national elections, Bayram argued that "a Jamaica coalition would be seen as a West German coalition in the east," noting the losses all three parties – the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Green Party – had suffered in the East.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Über mich". Canan Bayram. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  2. ^ "Canan Bayram, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen". Abgeordnetenhaus Berlin. Archived from the original on 29 September 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Canan Bayram". Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  4. ^ Bayram, Canan (28 February 2017). "Heute habe ich der Grünen Basis #Xhain meine Kandidatur für's Direktmandat #BTW17 Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg und Prenzlauer Berg-Ost erklärt". Twitter. Retrieved 29 September 2017.
  5. ^ Grüne Pankow (11 March 2017). "Canan Bayram als Nachfolgerin für Hans-Christian Ströbele nominiert". Gruene-pankow.de (in German). Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  6. ^ spiegel.de (16 June 2017). "Auftakt zum Grünen-Parteitag – 'Geht's noch?'". Gruene-pankow.de (in German). Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  7. ^ Berliner Direktkandidaten Wer ist drin – und wer ist draußen?[permanent dead link‍] (Berliner Zeitung online, 24 September 2017)
  8. ^ "Knapper Erfolg: Canan Bayram holte am Sonntag das Direktmandat". Berliner Woche. Berliner Wochenblatt Verlag GmbH. 25 September 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  9. ^ Alle Zahlen zur Bundestagswahl – Wahlkreisergebnisse faz.net, 25. September 2017
  10. ^ German Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Bundestag.
  11. ^ Erik Peter and Tobias Schulze (9 October 2024), Grünen-Politikerin zieht sich zurück: Nicht mehr grün genug Die Tageszeitung.
  12. ^ Berliner Morgenpost (14 January 2017). "Anwohner in der Rigaer Straße: "Uns geht es auf den Keks!"". Morgenpost.de (in German). Retrieved 20 July 2017.
  13. ^ Olaf Wedekind (28 June 2016). "Bäckerei sperrt Polizei aus. Viel Kritik an Grünen-Politikerin Bayram nach Rigaer-Tweet". Bz-berlin.de (in German). Retrieved 1 March 2017.
  14. ^ Das größte Risiko ist eine Revoluzzerin spiegel.de, 7. September 2017
  15. ^ Thomas Escritt (30 September 2017), Merkel allies fret over former East Germany's rightward shift Reuters.
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